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August 2013

Thursday, 08 August 2013

One of my favorites of my own OM-D shots. Image quality isluscious, in my H opinion.

I buried this too far down in the previous post, but just so you know, the Olympus OM-D is on sale until the 17th. In case you want a second one. Or a first one. It's our contributor Ctein's main camera, as you might know.

Oh, and speaking of Olympus, please stop by tomorrow for Part I of our two-part Olympus E-P5 PEN review. Also including the EVF and the [adjective deleted, so as not to give away the review conclusions] new 17mm ƒ/1.8 lens. The common consensus is that the E-P5 PEN and the OM-D use the same sensor.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

It's almost reassuring to see that some things never change. Zeiss (recently it dropped the "Carl" in a move I have to say I disapprove of) has announced a line of quality-no-object—and, more importantly no doubt, price-no-object—SLR lenses. (The way one of the members of the development team puts it is that that project has "no clear cost ceiling.")

The first outing, a 55mm ƒ/1.4, is a monster. You've probably read about all this already if you're interested.

The company formerly known as Carl Zeiss has a long history of not being constrained by the size and weight constraints on lens design. Its Contax 28–85mm zoom was twice the size and weight of competitors' models (that's a big camera it's mounted on in that picture). The 35–135mm Vario-Sonnar, especially, seemed to go past the frontiers—it was as big as a can of tennis balls and as heavy as brick (no, probably not literally). One of those pride-of-ownership lenses that seldom earned a place in camera bags because of the way it took it out on photographers' shoulders and backs.

A 1909 portrait by Indianapolis photographer Charles C. Pike, from an Ebay auction. Photographers back then searched for just the right blend of sharpness and unsharpness, balancing flattery and accuracy. You probably don't need to see every pore of this nice lady's skin to know what she looked like.

If I can be forgiven a smidge of social commentary, what we're seeing in product design these days is a bifurcation of markets. Wealth disparity means that the middle is being sucked out of category offerings. Many people don't have enough wealth to buy new $45,000 cars, for instance, so average car price increases in the lower tiers have been kept relatively suppressed for years; but the increase in cars that cost as much as houses has been pretty spectacular. (It keeps the overall average looking pretty constant.) Then consider that not one but two audio components in the last audio magazine I bought, a preamp and a pair of mono power amps for stereo, each retailed for $45,000. That's not a typo. It's been a long time since the 1970s, but inflation hasn't been 2000%.

So anyway, I suspect that's what's behind this. Zeiss would like a bit of that one-percenter market, please. Nothing wrong with adapting to market conditions, of course.

The old Zeiss/Contax (C/Y mount) Vario-Sonnar 35–135mm. Sorry, but the whole lens wouldn't fit into the picture—too big.

The bigger question from our perspective, I suppose, is, do we really need much better normal, portrait, and macro lenses, which Zeiss says it's going to concentrate on for the new line? The first offering in the new line, as I mentioned, will be a rather eye-wideningly large 55mm ƒ/1.4. By chance, a "portrait" lens I reviewed a few years ago, the Pentax 55mm ƒ/1.4 DA, has the exact same focal length and maximum aperture. Granted, it was an APS-C lens and just for Pentax cameras, and thus had a different project brief altogether. The new Zeiss will be a longish normal on full-frame cameras. But the Pentax lens is already too expensive, in my humble opinion, at $800, and—most importantly of all—it is just too, too blisteringly sharp for portraits. Do we really need to see skin pores defined even more crisply than they already are? I do understand it's 2013—not 1913, when portraitists searched fanatically for lenses with just the right kind and degree of unsharpness, sometimes even going to great lengths to hide the identity of their prized signature lenses from their competitors. But these lenses aren't portrait lenses in that they don't make portraits look good. It would be really nice if there could be some actual competition to make some actual portrait lenses. But there won't be, for reasons which you'll be able to read in our Comments tomorrow.

I've been studying numerous generously-sized Ctein proof prints of my "Hands" picture over the past few days. I have to say the quality is just fine, and that was taken with a Micro 4/3 camera (the Olympus OM-D, which by the way is on sale until the 17th), and its admittedly very fine quality kit zoom (the 12–50mm, and ditto).

I'm a Zeiss user, a Zeiss man, and a Zeiss fan. So of course I'll wish the team and the company well with their new project. At the same time, I'm not necessarily on board yet, "emotionally" shall we say.

But go to the link and read for yourself what they're doing—they can speak for themselves better than I can speak for them, and you can decide for yourself better than I can do that for you, too.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

KeithB: "What do you do to your prints to make them Ctein proof?"

Mike replies: Heh. That should be "Ctein proof-prints," not "Ctein-proof prints." And people say hyphens do no work.

BTW, prints cannot be made Ctein-proof. Like Superman, he sees through everything.

Ed Richards: "But will it cost more than a Leica lens? Leica moved to the 1% market years ago, and I am guessing that their lenses will be the price benchmark. Your basic 50mm ƒ/1.4 Leica is $3,995.00 at B&H. Since the Zeiss is autofocus, they could tack on a bit more, but my betting line is that they come in about Leica level."

Mike replies: I'm going out on a limb estimating something that could be researched—I haven't done so—but my sense is that Zeiss traditionally exceeds Canikon levels but pretty consistently stays below Leica levels. I could see $2,995 for this lens, but I'd bet not more than that. This is an idle thought, not an expert prediction. :-)

Wednesday, 07 August 2013

It's time to talk lenses for my IR-converted Olympus Pen.
Unless a lens has been specifically designed to work well in the
infrared, there's no way to tell how will perform based upon its
visible-light performance. A lens that is good in the visible can
turn out to be pretty crappy outside of its design range.

All optical properties of a lens are wavelength-dependent. The
refractive index of the glass changes with wavelength (the rate at
which it changes is called "dispersion"). This quality is so basic
to optical glass that Newton felt compelled to develop his reflecting
telescope, because he was certain the problem was unsolvable.
Happily, he turned out to be wrong. By combining several different
elements and lots of different glasses, you can build modern optics
which exhibit good corrections for all aberrations over the entire
visible spectrum.

Once you get outside the design range of the lens, things can go
completely to hell. Let's take longitudinal chromatic aberration, the
tendency for a lens to bring light of different wavelengths into
focus at different distances. This effect is somewhere between small
and negligible for a decent lens in the visible spectrum, but that
red dot that you see on the barrels of so many manual focus lenses?
That's the infrared focus spot, for the benefit of folks who were
using infrared film. You'd focus the lens normally and then rotate
the focus ring a bit to move the indicated distance from the normal
marker to the red dot.

Happily, with sensor-based focusing like in my IR-Pen, this is not a
problem. The same's true of lateral chromatic aberration. In the
deep IR, I'm doing essentially monochromatic photography. Problems
aren't limited, though, to just the two chromatic aberrations. All
aberration corrections in a lens are achieved by appropriate
combinations of lens elements with certain refractive indices and
dispersions. The corrections are always an approximation of
perfection, and designers don't worry about them outside the design
range of the lens. A lens that's well corrected for spherical
aberration in the visible may be very poor in the infrared.

Another problem that can pop up is hot-spotting. If the
anti-reflection coatings on the lens elements don't work terribly
well in the infrared, and many of them don't, a lot more light
bounces around in the barrel of the lens and makes its way through to
the sensor. The result is an image-veiling glow. This is correctable
in Photoshop, but it is annoying and inconvenient.

The very first lens I looked at was my Panasonic Lumix G 20mm ƒ/1.7.
I'm not desperately in love with this lens, as some folks are, but
it's a very good performer. I find the field of view is also a nice
match for the IR "look." Unfortunately, the lens is poor in the
infrared; there's substantial smearing and fuzziness towards the
edges of the frame that's just barely under control at ƒ/5 (figure
1). I don't think it looks entirely acceptable until ƒ/8. Oh well, at
least there's no hot-spotting.

Fig. 1. The Panasonic 20mm is a poor performer in the IR, as these center
(left) and corner (right) sections at ƒ/5 at 100% show.

OK, not an auspicious start. How about my Olympus 45mm ƒ/1.8? A
totally different story. This lens performs very well in the
infrared, even wide open. That's most unusual. Wide-open I think I
may see a bit of curvature of field, but there's not a lot, and
there's almost no smearing or blurring at the corners. At ƒ/3.2, a
stop and a half down, the image quality is exquisite (figure 2). The
uniformity's excellent with corner quality almost indistinguishable
from the center (figure 3). There's no hot spotting at any aperture.

Fig. 2. The Olympus 45mm is excellent in the IR. This is an ƒ/3.2 full
frame from the camera...

Fig. 3. ...And these are 100% sections from the center (left) and corner (right).

On to the Olympus 12mm ƒ/2. Not one of my favorite lenses, but it
is what it is. Is what it is good enough for infrared? Yup. It's
pretty decent by ƒ/2.8 and very good at ƒ/4 and on down. Yes, there's
a bit of smearing in the corners, same as in visible light, which is
why it ain't one of my favorites. But it's not worse than in the
visible, which makes it very good by IR standards. And, again, no
hot-spotting.

How about my 85mm ƒ/1.4 Rokinon manual lens? It continues to impress.
It's soft/smeary in the corners wide open and at ƒ/2–2.8. I could use
it wide in a pinch, but I would rather not. It's improving as it
stops down, though, and by ƒ/4 it's looking mighty good everywhere.

So, three of my four primes hold up well in the IR. What about my
zooms? My 14–42mm Olympus kit zoom (first generation) is a surprise
win. At the 14mm setting there's smearing in the corners wide open,
but stopping down one stop cleans up most of it. At 20mm, it's
definitely superior to the Panasonic 20mm ƒ/1.7. Wide open, at ƒ/4,
it's close to as good as the 20mm at ƒ/8. Stopped down to ƒ/5.6 it's
superior. At longer focal lengths wide open is OK but not great.
Stopping down a stop makes things a lot better and is probably the
optimum aperture across the board.

The Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45–200 ƒ/4–ƒ/5.6 also turned out to be OK
in the IR. At 45mm, it's nowhere in the same league as the 45mm
Olympus, but if it were already on the camera I'd feel comfortable
using it. At 72mm, it's a bit off in the corners wide open (ƒ/4.3)
but not too bad; ƒ/5.6 improves things. At 120mm and onward, the image
is uniform but soft wide open; it's very decent half a stop to a stop
down. There seems to be a lot of light loss wide-open with this lens,
at all focal lengths—a good half stop at least—so there's not much
reason to use it wide-open anyway. And, still, no pronounced
hot-spotting.

So, are hot spots a thing of the past? Nope, I'm just lucky in my
choice of lenses. I played with my friend DDB's Olympus 60mm ƒ/2.8 macro a bit,
and while the sharpness and uniformity were acceptable (though not
spectacular), the hot-spotting was severe (figure 4).

The Olympus 60mm ƒ/2.8 macro lens has a serious hot-spot problem in the IR.

Just a brief tip that might be useful. This was inspired by Alan Farthing, who wrote in response to Ken's short post yesterday:

This year
we lost a good friend and had difficulty in finding an image of him for
his obituary. Yes he hated having his picture taken; found quite a few
where he was caught dodging cameras. We should have been insistent on at
least a few occasions....

We all have friends or relatives who dislike being photographed and who often ask not to be. They do dodge the camera and complain when you try to sneak a few shots—or work out ways to subvert us, a form of hostility masquerading as "being funny." My policy in those cases is to respect peoples' wishes, and not nip away at them with the camera if they happen not to like it. People should be treated how they wish to be treated.

But, as Ken and Alan so eloquently expressed, we often want to have pictures of those dopes we love. And we need a few. What to do?

I've had very good luck just sitting down with those people and making a deal. I tell them I won't take a picture of them at every opportunity and I won't be all the time sticking a camera in their face, but that in return I have a request. I explain that photography is my thing (they already know that) and they are important people to me and that I'd really like to get a decent record shot of what they look like every now and then. I just ask them if they will please cooperate with me for five or ten minutes twice a year—not for them, but as a favor to me—and just put up with me on those occasions. Later, when I invoke that discussion, they relent.

Then, when I get my chance, I work quickly, to minimize their discomfort, often taking three minutes or even less. That helps set up the next occasion.

So far, it's worked for everyone I've tried it with. Maybe it will work for you too.

Mike(Thanks to Alan)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Geoff Wittig: "I tried that with my wife. Still doesn't fly. She's so outrageously
camera-shy that a solid 75% of the photographs I have taken of her
include her raised hand obscuring her face. (Sometimes with an extended
finger.)
I have managed to catch a few lovely candids of her when she was
distracted by other family members. Oddly enough she likes the photos as
much as I do. But she still does everything she can to dodge the next
one. It's remarkably similar to photographing skittish wildlife; perhaps
I should pull out the 500mm ƒ/4 lens...."

Mike replies: LOL! Surveillance photography....

Mike Chisholm: "Of course, as photographers, it is quite likely we usually forget one
quite important family member—ourselves. Many of us are embarrassed
by self-portraiture; it seems a little vain. But in 50 years, the
only shots of you are likely to belong to someone else's family.
Get over it, and sit in front of a camera...preferably your own!"

Alan Farthing replies to Mike: Thanks Mike for the suggestion. Shame I could not try that with Dave!

Tuesday, 06 August 2013

This week I lost a member of my family, someone who was part of my daily world for nearly half of my life. It can be all too easy to take someone so close for granted and let them become invisible. To my great dismay, despite owning a small fortune worth of camera equipment, that's what I had done. I could find no photos of him amidst the tens of thousands of images in my library.

Fortunately my wife, the sharper member of our partnership, had not suffered such a lapse and had an excellent series of snapshots from earlier this year. It was wonderful to see them. They'll certainly be treasures for the rest of our lives.

Which leads me to the point of this piece. Lest we forget, the primary reason most of us originally bought cameras was to record our lives. Our families. Our friends. Our travels. The things that give us joy. The things we love and care most for. The pursuit of "art" and self-expression is also a wonderful use of a camera. But it's a terrible mistake to allow such pursuits to distract you from covering all of the personal treasures of your life.

So may I suggest that today would be a good time to take pictures of the important souls in your world if you don't routinely do so. PRINT the pictures, the good and the "bad," and put them in a safe place. I can almost guarantee that one day they will become the most valuable pictures in your collection.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Son of Tarzan: "So beautifully stated Kenneth. Thank you for sharing and more
importantly, reminding us the value of memories, especially visual ones. That is the best reason for anyone's use of the photographic process.
I am passing your words on to many of my family and friends."

Bill Poole: "One of my favorite photo anthologies is called simply Family: Photographers Photograph their Families—from Phaidon and with lovely reproductions. Well-known photographers' pics of the people closest to them. I bought my copy used and was surprised to find that it is still in print."

M. G. Van Drunen: "Wow Ken, what amazing timing. My wife and I returned home about two hours ago from the funeral of a dear friend who succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 58. We have traveled with Ken and Arlene for nearly 35 years.

"After she passed away her husband contacted me to check my files for pictures to be used by the funeral home in a video slide show for the wake. I was able to do this and it just made clear to me exactly what you have written...the pictures of Mount Rushmore are nice, but the pictures of Arlene standing in front with the Presidents in the background have now become priceless to me and hopefully her family.

"One more thought: The journey toward mastering the 'arty' shots has also help my priceless family and friend shots.

It's also available for Kindle, but I'd probably only advise buying that version if you read your Kindle books on one of the larger iPads (or any good tablet). Actual Kindles are more for verbal books and don't do terribly well with illustrations.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

John Krumm: "Thanks for the notice. I just added a bit to Zander's next tuition payment and ordered the book. I've come to enjoy printing almost as much as taking photographs, sometimes more, and I'm ready to dive into something like this...."

Mike replies: We never talk about this, but I've known a number of people over the years who enjoy printing pictures more than taking pictures.

Carson Harding: "The print is the thing, so I photograph in order have material to print.
But this doesn't seem to be common. Buying and chatting about paper at
the camera store, there was an awkward pause when I mentioned that my
printer was my favourite piece of photographic equipment."

These books are old faves, but it's been a while since any of them have been mentioned in these precincts. Note this post's title: Photographing, not photography. The two intersect and overlap, but these are books that lean toward illuminating the creative act.

A book about engaging with your own psychology when making art, especially addressing the question: What stops you? The authors over-specify a bit, meaning you have to "take what you need and leave what you don't." But it's great for helping to make an important leap: creativity is fundamentally about creating, and we're all burdened with feelings about how we personally relate to that.

A book I've long called "the basic primer." (The word is pronounced "primmer," by the way, not "prime-er" as you'd expect.) At root I like it for one overriding reason: it gives a guided tour of how one intelligent and informed viewer engages with some specific pictures. That sense is an illusion, of course, because this is a highly created literary work, but that sense that the best photographs reward concentrated looking and thinking, creating a conversation in the mind, has never left me. It's this book's best gift, among many.

What?! Hold on a minute, this is a book about poetry. I know, but there is commonality between the task of expressive creativity across the various arts, and you need to expand your thinking to accommodate that. (There are also differences between them that they don't share, but that fact is easy to grasp.) In fact, some of the best insights I've been given into photography have come from reading about music. Even if you can't find much here to apply to the creative life, it's still a good, entertaining, easy-to-read little book that rewards our time and attention.

On Being a Photographer, by Bill Jay and David Hurn

The one book of words that, really, every photographer should read. The lovely Bill Jay, who I still choose to believe is alive and living a blissfully untroubled retirement under an assumed name in Central America, and his mentor-become-friend, Magnum photojournalist David Hurn, grapple with the essential difficulties of subject matter. (And if you haven't yet, friend, you're not a photographer yet.) A good book to react against, too, even, as you forge your own practice of our craft as art. You can reject as well as accept ideas, but you'd better do it mindfully.

I've confined myself above to books you can actually buy. Among many standouts you can't buy any more are Edward Weston's Daybooks, his seminal (and lingeringly influential) limning of an artistic life behind the camera; Gisele Freund's forthright but wonderful Photography and Society, which will never be reprinted and which I will never not love and treasure, although I have not read it for many years; and on and on goes that list....

I haven't finished any of them (imagine that, projects that I haven't finished—what is the world coming to), but I suspect I will enjoy some of them, especially the last.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Michael T.: "I will second #1, #2, and #4 as I too have owned these three for many,
many years and revisit them as needed. I also recommend Why People Photograph
by Robert Adams,
and Advice for Photographers: The Next Step by Al Weber."

andy ilachinski: "One of my favorite little books of wisdom is The Education of a Photographer
by Heller and Traub. It is an absolute steal for $6 or so
for the Kindle version."

Paul: "I was happy to find some of my favorites listed. I would only add The Courage to Create
by Rollo May. The basic idea is that when we create,
we anger the gods; we are intruding on their turf. So it takes courage
to confront the gods—not willingly, but necessarily."

Kenneth Tanaka: "As I'd expect, you've covered nearly all the books of this genre that
I'd recommend from my own library, Mike. (I've never seen the Ezra
Pound work...left field!) All good stuff.

"Here's one more, a collection of short essays and interviews, that I've
enjoyed reading off-and-on for the past two summers. The Education of a
Photographer is available in both print and Kindle.
(I didn't realize that Aperture was not printing more of Gerry Badger's Joy
of... book!)"

Ed Hawco: "A couple of years ago you mentioned Why Photographs Work. Is that the missing fifth book?"

Sunday, 04 August 2013

Good news if you liked the "Hands" shot from the other day...Ctein was adamant that I should have a sale of it (he liked it), so I sent him the file for printing. I've been looking at the proofs he sent me all weekend, and it's a very satisfactory print if I do say so myself. I'm really very enthusiastic about where I am with digital B&W right now (finally). So we'll have a small sale; I just don't know exactly how yet. Working on it.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

I've only recently caught up to the whole concept of "geekiness" in what Wikipedia describes as its "evolved" meaning—an expert or enthusiast who is interested in an intellectual or complex subject for its own sake. Or (more negatively) an odd sort of duck who is way more into something than is healthy, or who takes very seriously something that was meant to be light. (I suspect a Zen pinnacle of geeky circularity was reached recently when Bryan Cranston, who plays Walter White on the TV show "Breaking Bad," attended Comic-Con impenetrably disguised in a startlingly lifelike Walter White mask. If that's not a cool concept, I don't know what is.) I've long noted, however, the tendency of individuals to dive into some narrow subject and stay there for the rest of their lives. Devotees love their subjects in what seems like almost a brain-chemical way.

I've privately mused that this must be an evolved trait related to the basic human unit of the tribe. I'm sure in the ancestral environment of a million years ago, every tribe of hunter-gatherers had a weird guy named Ogg who was just totally into making hand tools by chipping rocks. He was better at it than anybody else; everybody marveled at how good he was; and he made the spearheads and sinew-choppers for the nomad band's best people. And of course he ate, slept and drank rock chipping: he was kind of a bore at parties. He had rivals as well as a gaggle of admirers. And apprentices, which turned out to be a good thing when Ogg died of old age at 26. And his narrow focus on his passion was a real competitive advantage for the tribe and an evolutionary edge for their genes.

Relief, not replacementAnyway, Ctein and I learned a lesson last week, separately and independently: that we each have subjects we just love to geek out about but that readers of TOP plainly don't want to read a lot more about. Bottom line: no more columns about billiards or tea. The lonely whisper of the wind and the sound of chirping crickets around here after each of those columns was rather consternating. Ctein set a new record low for comments, and the only thing people wanted to talk about in the wake of my post about my pool lesson last Sunday was whether I should have taken the "on-the-way-there" picture from the car in the rain. Which was interesting, but of course completely beside the point of the post.

We each love those subjects, respectively (that is, he's a tea geek and, lately at least, I'm a pool geek), but Internet audiences are self-selecting, and what qualifies as a break from our normal topic and what is a departure from it is a distinction we have become newly aware of. Off-topic posts should be temporary relief from the usual fare, not a replacement for it.

A genuine Ogg. Pricey, but worth it.

As I always say, one constant of running an interactive website for tens of thousands of smart and informed readers is that you keep learning lessons. We hope to become more adroit in the future about the ways in which we go off-topic.

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic and sometimes off-the-wall ruminations from TOP World Headquarters in the heart of urban Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

No doubt Mike is writing his own clarification, but I figure I better
double down on it, because of widespread misconception.

I have no intention of curtailing OT columns, either in scope or
frequency! They will continue exactly as in the past.
Mike simply felt (and I concurred) that the very small number of
comments on two specific topics—tea and pool—meant we had gone on
too long on those subjects and started to bore our readers. On just
those two topics, not on OT in general.
Whether that's true seems to be subject to argument, but there's no
argument about OT columns in general.

Mine will continue as before,
roughly once a month.
In fact, with Column 300 coming up in four weeks, you can count on it.
As is my wont for the centenary scribblings, it'll be OT and likely even
a two parter, as I tend to tackle big topics on the anniversaries.

And, oh yeah, it's gonna generate comments, I betcha.

Pax, Ctein.

Featured Comments from:

SerrArris: "Mike, please, the tea and pool columns were the most interesting reads
last week. I am a fan of your website because it isn't 100% dedicated to
photography! I love to read about tea, coffee, hifi equipment, pool,
etc. It broadens my vision. But I don't want to read dedicated tea,
coffee etc blogs, as they get boring soon (I'm not so much into that
topics, but an occasional read is great). For me, your off-topic posts
are what makes TOP special. Forget about the 10,000 other readers and
continue to write off-topic for ME.
Best regards,
Markus."

David Paterson: "Phew! For weeks I've been rehearsing ironic posts about the photographic
blog which never mentions photography, but just kept holding off, for
some reason (that old sixth sense).
I'm glad you've seen the light (NPI) but while you're at it, why not
include hi-fi in the embargo?"

Mike replies: What?! Everyone loves hi-fi!

David Miller: "WRONG! Mike, sometimes there may be no comments because an item from you or Ctein is complete: informative, well-written, perhaps (as in both the posts you cite) delightful. I had nothing to add, nothing to take issue with, but I enjoyed peering through the windows you opened into places I know nothing about. I love having my world expanded and being conducted on small tours by witty, intelligent, and passionate guides.

"I'm sorry if your loyal readers don't always give you enough positive feedback. But you're grown-ups (well…); I counsel you to have a bit of faith in your own skills and in our ability to let you know if you are drifting into tedium. (Aha! That's the negative aspect of Geekdom that you passed over: the wrong sort of geeks are boring. You and Ctein haven't even come close. If you do, trust us to tell you.) Sometimes silence is a compliment: we're thinking, savouring, nodding quietly to ourselves.

"Your post sent me off to the links for the billiard school. Ctein's sent me off for a cup of tea. Yes, photography is the shared interest that—along with good writing—keeps me coming back daily to TOP; but variety is the very spice of life.

"Write on, gentlemen!

Kusandha Hertrich: "I couldn't agree more with Hugh Weller-Lewis, Benjamin Marks and others
who expressed similar sentiments.
I read TOP on a daily basis, and have tried to comment only once before
this. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy the posts or get something valuable out
of them.
There are plenty of sites with narrow focus on photography; we don't
need another one of those. Balance is important, and striking the right
one of on- and off-topic posts is something that should happen. But for
me it's the off-topic posts that help me really connect with you and
Ctein as people and not just two dimensional avatars on my screen."

Bron (partial comment): "Despite studying photography, and working as a photographer and darkroom tech, and still doing photography, I'm far more likely to skip an equipment post than one of the entertaining, informative OT posts."

Terry Moore (partial comment): "For the record I really enjoy the tea posts—actually more than Ctein's usual. I read the billiards one but they don't do anything for me. More hi-fi OT posts would be fine."

Mike replies: There, y'see, David Paterson? :-)

Rod Graham: "I've enjoyed all the detours also. I thought the billiards piece was
fascinating not so much from the pool itself, but from the
student-teacher relationship and how much we all can learn from someone
who is truly knowledgeable, whether pool or photography."

Bahi: "I like the OTs as well. I'm waiting for the post on beards: you and Ctein, conversation style. :-)"

Friday, 02 August 2013

As humans, for almost anything we do, we seem to want a set of step-by-step instructions: a recipe. We use recipes in our jobs, to cure our addictions, to lose weight, and, with somewhat less success, to make art.

Photography has a recipe for everything. What f-stop should I use for landscapes? Where should I place the strobes to take a portrait? How can I do the Brenizer effect? Where in the frame should I place the subject? Answers to these and a thousand other questions can be found in the form of simple step-by-step directions in a thousand books, on a thousand web sites, and at a thousand workshops. Worse, we tend to communicate in recipes. When we're asked how we did a certain thing, our reply as often as not is in the form of simple step-by-step instructions. The industry conspires with us: for every photographic problem, there are a dozen gadgets which solve precisely that problem, each packaged with a little booklet of instructions.

Cooking has long worked well with recipes. So why should photography be any different? In the first place, photography is (or can be) art, and the ability to produce an identical cake day after day is rarely what we want to do. In the second place, cookery has had centuries of effort expended on standardization specifically to make recipes work. A measured teaspoon is more or less the same size everywhere in the non-metric world, as is a cup. Baking powder has roughly the same concentration of sodium bicarbonate in it regardless of brand. To get a handle on how far cookery has come, try reading a cookbook from 200 years ago. It's quite different—and almost completely useless in modern terms.

Dictating tasteWhy is this "recipe culture" a problem? Surely it's not necessary that everyone should earn a Ph.D. in optics and deduce everything else from there. The problem is not that we start with a recipe, the problem is that all too often we end with the recipe. When investigating what is to us new territory, of course we can usefully start with a couple of recipes, and try them out. All too often, though, we find a recipe that works and we stick with it.

The problem, really, is at least threefold:

Every recipe contains tacit assumptions, without which it will not work

Recipes tend to suppress learning

Recipes tend to dictate results, which tend in turn to dictate taste

Hidden assumptions mean that, frequently, a recipe simply won't work for you. Photography has a lot of variables—enough that making all of them explicit is difficult. Such-and-such a technique only works with a full frame sensor, or has to be modified in such-and-such a way for a crop sensor. This technique assumes that the day is windless. That one only works with a sufficiently fast lens. And so on.

When we have a recipe that works, we have a very human tendency to stop there. We don't dig into it further or take it apart and see what makes it tick. One can argue that this is inherently bad by itself, but there is a practical point as well: when the unspoken assumptions of the recipe are no longer true, the recipe will fail. Usually at the worst possible time.

Finally, recipes dictate results. We come to expect portraits to be made with one of a handful of lighting idioms, and, if we do, then we assume others to be simply wrong. If we refuse to place our subject on a one-third "power point" we're never going to win the first prize in the local camera club's annual picture competition. Perhaps it's worth thinking about how many photographers have built careers around simply using the "wrong" lights, or the "wrong" post-processing effects.

A simple recipe for composition might produce pleasing pictures when seen one by one, but produces a certain sameness after you've seen it too many times.

What can we do about it? We can try to communicate less in recipes than in information. We can make a little effort to push ourselves whenever we catch ourselves blindly following a recipe. We can experiment more, and cleave to orthodoxy less. We can remember that if it looks good, it is good. If it looks good, it doesn't matter where the lights were or what the white balance is. If it looks good, it doesn't matter which of the thousand parameters are "right" and which are "wrong."

Andrew

"Your Turn" is a series of guest posts by TOP regulars (longtime readers and/or frequent commenters). Sometimes they are posts from readers' own blogs. Want to submit one? Here's how.

Andrew Molitor writes software for a living, occasionally writes about photography for himself, and fondly remembers being a mathematician 20 years ago. His blog is here. He lives and works in Norfolk, Virginia.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Stan B.: "One of my biggest revelations about 'the creative process' came during my brief assisting career when a photographer came up to the studio I was working at, all excited to show his latest. I became excited in turn—this pro was going to unveil his latest right in front of my very eyes! And there before me were a couple of the worst Grade B Helmut Newton imitations I've seen to this day.

"A grown man, a working professional, actually excited about consciously having made sub-standard imitations! A sad day—and a learning experience nonetheless."

Mike adds: During my short assisting career, it was my pro himself who proudly unveiled the artwork. I'll see your Helmut Newton and raise you...Vermeer.

Really. They were so tasteless I think I was actually speechless, not a small accomplishment in my case. But he had the recipe right!

Andre: "Your own personal style isn't always a good thing. My mother's
signature photographic style with family snapshots was to shoot too
high, resulting in pictures with lots of sky or blank wall/ceiling and
little of the intended subject. Distinctive? Yes. Good? Well...I know a lot about what the skies and ceilings of my childhood looked
like. If my mom had followed the recipes, I'd likely know a lot more of
what my siblings and I looked like back then. :-) "

Jimmy Reina: "One night, in response to a member's submission at a local camera club
meeting, a colleague suggested, 'You know, you are never supposed to
shoot into the sun.'
It was a photo of a sunset."

robert (partial comment): You say, 'Perhaps it's worth thinking about how many photographers have built
careers around simply using the "wrong" lights, or the "wrong"
post-processing effects.'
I'm interested in your opinion about this sentence.
I agree with the spirit of the article, I tend to avoid the
conventional, but there is a difference between rules and recipes."

Bron: "Nice post Andrew. As an artist/craftsman (the ancient craft of gilding) who
has tried to blur any distinction, I believe good art requires a
foundation of good, technical craft. But that is all it is, a basis. I
have recipes I start from, gram scales and measuring cups, but every
mixture is often modified, to meet changing conditions or just to modify
working qualities. My best art starts from an idea and grows, all by
feel. As in cooking, if you stray, you'll have some failures, but you
will also have some grand successes."

Tom Clifton: "Hmm, when cooking, I have never met a recipe that I didn't alter. A
recipe is a starting place; from there, find out what works and what
doesn't."

psu: "On recipes in cooking:
'The recipe is a blueprint but also a red herring, a way to do something
and a false summing up of a living process that can be handed on only
by demonstration, a knack posing as knowledge. We say "What's the
recipe?" when we mean "How exactly do you do it?" And though we want the
answer to be "Like this!" the honest answer is "Be me!" "What's the
recipe?" you ask a weary pro chef, and he gives you a weary-pro-chef
look since the recipe is the totality of the activity, the real work.
The recipe is to spend your life cooking.'
(Adam Gopnik, from The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food.)"

Crabby Umbo: "Interestingly enough, the only people I know making a middle-class
living are those who are shooting catalog and retail, usually pick-up
days at the companies studios—and if you do that, you do the same stuff
the same way all the time, unless the art director is 'trying something
different.'
When I was in management, I actually had to let a guy go who was OK,
but who, every time he got an assignment, tried to 'reinvent the wheel,'
mostly to the detriment of getting the assignment done. And he really
didn't have the chops to make it wonderful anyway. He would have
held on to his job if he had just thrown the lightbox on the thing the
same way every time."

Mark Hobson: "I have avoided cooking by recipe simply by not owning any cookbooks.
Instead, I have consumed lots of full course meals—a.k.a., picture
monographs—all of which tasted great and have left me with a
delightful aftertaste which continues to inspire me to make my own
edible creations, all of which are, of course, cooked from scratch."

Thursday, 01 August 2013

Marketing guru Dan Ariely talks about an interesting concept. First, a given in marketing is that people like to stand in line for things. That is, we like to do what other people are doing, and we tend to want what other people want. The interesting part is that people also tend to "stand in line with themselves," meaning, if your first car was a Ford, and your second car was a Ford, and your third car was a Ford, then, figuratively speaking, you're standing in line behind your past selves when you choose a Ford again.

This is what creates "Ford men"...and "fanboys." Or any of the various other terms that mean something similar.

In that sense, I'm beside myself! (Get the joke?) Writing about cameras for so many years I've had to switch and swap, go this way then that. I'm an Olympus man, because I shot with an Olympus for four years in the '90s. I've never been a Leica man even though I shot with Leicas for almost as long (an M4, M6, M3, and IIIf. But rangefinders just weren't a fit for me). I'm a Pentax man because I fell in love with Spotmatics late in that decade, but I didn't grow up shooting Pentaxes like so many people did. I said here that I'm a Sony man. That was ten years ago. And so I am again today, without even intending it—my two main cameras are a NEX-6 and an A900. A Sony man still—who'd a' thunk? I shot Nikon for my "pro years," such as they were, but that didn't count because it was "business."

In 2009 I got a Panasonic GF1 and that was my main camera for almost three years (although other cameras were of course in and out of the house, as they always are). I followed it with a GX1 which was shorter-lived, shoved aside by the Sony. Because, you see, what I really think of myself as—still!—is a Contax man, even though they're out of business and I haven't shot with one for years. Because that was the first serious camera I bought with my own money and the camera I went through art school with. I had Zeiss lenses. It was with me always and I used it every day. My Zeiss-love survives from ancient youth, the lure of the first love. (Hey, lenses shouldn't be made of rose-colored glasses.)

Whew.

All this hopping and skipping is not good for your photography. It has definitely not been good for mine. My fondest wish if I ever retire is to use one camera for a whole decade (or at least half of one). Really get to know it. Never look at anything else. I might yet get the chance.

Odd, because in the wake of this morning's announcements I find myself still thinking of myself as a Micro 4/3 devotee and a Panasonic shooter. Were I still shooting with the GX1, I would without a doubt be lining up with a whole bunch of other people to buy a GX7 today. No question.

And lining up behind myself, too. Odd how that happens. We identify with something because it relates to what we did before.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Rick Popham: "Whaaat?? Your two main cameras are a NEX-6 and an A-900? What happened to the Big Dragoon? Did I miss something?"

Mike replies: Still have it. Just don't use it much. I'm scared I might take a chunk out of its resale value and have been babying it.

Rob: "Brand loyalty is an interesting psychological phenomenon that relates to
our personal identification with our possessions. Some people are
higly prone to it, while others are more utilitarian minded.
Personally, I often find myself promoting or defending whatever I am
currently using, but I am not tied to any particular brand over the long
term. So, I tend to be enthusiastic but not attached, which I think is
a good thing.

"I started seriously in photography with a Contax G2 and then moved on to
various Pentax DSLRs and some fine prime lenses. Now I am totally
smitten by the Sony RX1. I don't know if that makes me a Sony guy, but I
do want to use that camera to the exclusion of all others."

Rob [different Rob —Ed.]: "I was a Canon man as soon as I held a Canon T90. I still feel I am a Canon man even though I don't own anything Canon!"

...And should you want a sweet portrait lens for your new GX7, Panasonic has just announced the Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm (85mm-e) ƒ/1.2.

The nomenclature is a little screwy. In traditional Leica-ese, "-cron" signifies ƒ/2, not ƒ/1.2. However, "Nocticron" is a registered trademark of Leica Camera AG.

But a) people who complained about the old 45mm Macro's slow ƒ/2.8 speed will certainly be happy; b) traditionalists who like manual aperture rings will be happy (it has one); and c) owners of non-stabilized older Panasonic Micro 4/3 bodies will be happy, because the lens has O.I.S. of its own.

Vaporware for now. Coming. Sure to be pricey, but who wants it any other way?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

B. R. George: "For me, the most interesting aspect of both of today's Panasonic
announcements is the direction they suggest. I'm not especially in the
market for this particular camera (although it looks delightful) or for
this particular lens (although that's more of a temptation), but these
announcements tell me that Panaonic now does IBIS and aperture rings,
and I'm quite interested in both of those features."

The beautiful new Panasonic GX7 appears to have everything that usersof this camera line have been asking for.

Cameramakers sure are getting good at this particular niche. Collectively, they seem to be on to something.

There are at least seven—and maybe more—compact mirrorless gems already on the market right now that anybody should be more than pleased to own. Now there's one more: the beautiful little Panasonic GX7, the heir to the GF1 and GX1, both fine cameras in their time (2009 and 2011, respectively).

Much as I liked those petite but no-nonsense little bricks, the new one looks like something really special. Seems like Panasonic has been truly listening to what people have been been asking for. And has delivered.

First of all, a built-in electronic viewfinder. Not only that, but it's tiltable.

And a tiltable viewing screen / touch screen, too. (Articulation on just one axis—if you know what I mean—won't be to everyone's liking, but it's what I prefer personally.)

And in-body image stabilization (IBIS)! A first for this lineage.

Rumor has it that the GX7 doesn't have an anti-aliasing filter, either.

The usual and expected incremental improvements are more impressive on the video side, but the new camera offers plenty of up-to-the-minute improvements in the specs.

Cost is $1000 for the body. But do take into account that EVF, an added cost on most of this camera's competitors. The Olympus E-P5 is the same price, but without its EVF.

Consider the cost of the GX7 and the 20mm lens together: $1,428; and the cost of the E-P5, VF-4 EVF, and 17mm ƒ/1.8 kit: $1,449. Think these guys aren't watching each other?

I'll be very interested to see the first photo of the GX7 next to the E-P5 with its EVF perched on top, though. The form-factor difference is going to be rather glaring. And if you're one of those who don't like the big 24mm on the little NEX-6 and -7, you'll probably like the well-proportioned sized of this camera with its basic lenses.

I think the retro craze has been good for this camera's styling, too. It's not exactly retro itself, but it looks like the retro influence has made it handsomer than its predecessors.

The nice thing about this line has always been its rather blue-collar, get-the-job-done vibe. They've stuffed an awful lot into this new one. I do hope it retains the same solid, right-sized feel and straightforward character as its predecessors, along with its dazzling new delights.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Frank: "I think you're right, this could be the best yet. As the specs and photos are unveiled there aren't any 'd'oh' moments...they got everything right so far."

BH: "Looks like a great camera. I have only one question: How responsive is it? I've yet to use a mirrorless camera that can keep up with my DSLR when it comes to getting the shot exactly when you want it. I'd love to sell ye olde brick, but so far other great cameras like the OM-D and X100 just haven't been able to perform with that 'get the job done NOW' responsiveness of my DSLR. I suppose it's only a matter of time; perhaps that time is now?"

Mike replies: Hmm, maybe that's why I like my NEX-6 so much: it's fast enough. I'm aware from time to time of its slow turn-on time, but it never makes me conscious of shutter lag. I'm with you, I hope the GX7 is as good.

Mike R: "Oh, f..., f..., FUDGE! After I just told myself that I don't need a newer camera, this blatant act of good-intentions-sabotage comes along. Oh, worry, oh, woe, how am I going to tell myself that it's really 'okay'? Maybe, if I hop on a train to NYC and B&H, and actually hold one, reality will take over: It's just another camera...just another camera...just another camera...just...."

Mike replies: Believe me, Mike, if what you're trying to do is resist temptations, a trip to B&H Photo's Superstore is not the way to do that. :-D

John Camp: "The two keys for me are the sensor quality and the grip. I get along perfectly fine with my two GX1s, but a little more good-quality ISO range would be great, and I do like the fact that the GX7 is a little bigger—the GX1 is just a bit small for my hands. Hell, let's face it, I'll probably order two of them this afternoon."

Mike replies: Well, if you do, do it through my links, would you? We've just lost Pentax, our biggest advertiser. (The ad is still up, but it will be coming down as soon as we settle accounts—or we don't, as the case may be.)

Alberto Bengoa: "The only thing that makes me not to completely lust over this camera is the fact that on paper the user interface of the EP-5 seems better: those two wheels plus the mode switch makes for instant (through hardware, physical controls) access to four settings instead of just two. That may be a deal breaker in day-to-day use. Other than that, I really want this GX7."